Displaying items by tag: coronavirus

Jamaica: Caribbean Cement says that it produced a record 0.94Mt of cement in 2020 due to market demand. This has been attributed to capital investment, positive government policies in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the company’s own reaction and the ‘expertise’ of its employees. It said it did not experience an overall loss of productive time due to closures related to the public health situation. Heavy rainfall, inconsistent power supplies and disruptions to mining in the third quarter of 2020 prevented the cement producer from surpassing 1Mt for the year.

“The market responded opposite to what might have been expected given the pandemic. Instead of slowing down, construction grew, and we kept in step with our customers by meeting their demand consistently. We will continue to ramp up production as the market grows,” said Yago Castro, General Manager of Caribbean Cement. He added, “The Government of Jamaica assessed the situation well and allowed critical sectors to continue operating once certain protocols were followed. Prioritising health, while keeping economic goals in mind, have mitigated against the negative impact on our sector.”

Dominican Republic: The Dominican Association of Portland Cement Producers (ADOCEM) estimates that local production fell by 8% year-on-year in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Julissa Báez, the executive director of ADOCEM, said this compared to a 16% drop in the construction industry generally, according to local media. She added that local cement plants were allowed to continue production during a local lockdown that started in March 2020.

Bangladesh: The Bangladesh Cement Manufacturers Association (BCMA) has called on the state-owned Bangladesh Bank (BB) to extend an ongoing moratorium period on the payment of loan instalments by another six months to mid-2021 in response to the negative economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The original loan window was schedule to end on 31 December 2020, according to the Dhaka Tribune newspaper. The association has also called for a fixed lending rate for non-government lenders due to rising costs. Local cement sales fell by 13% year-on-year in the five months from January to May 2020 due to a coronavirus-related lockdown that ended in late May 2020.

US: Cemex USA has delivered grants via the Cemex Foundation to over 80 non-profit organisations so far in 2020 as part of its coronavirus relief efforts. The funds donated by Cemex USA employees have provided more than a quarter million meals to those facing food insecurity and overall have positively impacted more than 200,000 people in California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Florida. The initiative also supplied more than 20,000 pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical staff and first responders.

“Covid-19 has created far-reaching impacts and unparalleled challenges, prompting thousands of families to request additional support for food and shelter while they continuously worry about the health and safety of themselves and their loved ones. At Cemex USA, we wanted to help our neighbours and communities during this unprecedented time,” said Cemex USA president Jaime Muguiro. “The help provided by non-profits right now is critical, and we are proud to be able to deliver significant support for their initiatives that are making a difference in our communities.”

Organisations that have benefited from the grants include: United Way of Central Alabama (UWCA) in Birmingham, Alabama; Feeding South Florida in Florida; Feed the Frontline Houston in Houston, Texas; Lyons Emergency Assistance Fund (LEAF) in Lyons, Colorado; House of Refuge in South Mesa, Arizona; and Heart of Los Angeles Youth (HOLA) in Los Angeles, California.

Romania: Holcim Romania and its subsidiary Somaco have donated around Euro0.95m to local hospitals to help buy equipment to manage the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 20 hospitals in the counties of Alba, Arad, Argeș, Bihor, Buzău, Cluj, Dâmbovița, Iași, Neamț, Prahova, Timiș, Vrancea and Bucharest will benefit from the funds. It will be used to buy protective gear and medical equipment such as medical monitors, ventilators and fans. This latest donation follows one in April 2020 bringing Holcim Romania’s total to around Euro1.5m.

Italy: Federbeton, the Italian cement and concrete association, has called for a coordinated infrastructure investment plan to restart the national economy once the coronavirus crisis recedes. It has noted a halt to production not seen since the 1940s during the current crisis and a general reduction in cement consumption to 17Mt/yr from 47Mt/yr over the last decade, according to the Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA). It is calling on a strategic plan for the sector to make any post-pandemic economic recovery as efficient as possible.

Argentina: 40 employees of China Nation Building Materials (CNBM) subsidiary Sinoma International Engineering have arrived at the site of Loma Negra’s upcoming L’Amalí cement plant in Olavarría. El Popular Medios News has reported that the engineers will complete work on the plant in time for commissioning in March 2021. The engineers caused a stir at the Ezeiza International Airport as they were dressed in protective clothing and masks unlike many other local travellers.

Russia: Soyuzcement, the national cement manufacturing union, has forecast a 4% year-on-year fall in cement production in 2020. Greater declines are expected in the central and southern federal regions. It observed that only half of the country’s production capacity was used in 2020. However, the organisation has credited government subsidies for mortgages as staving off the worse economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic in the first half of the year by stimulating construction.

Rwanda: PPC subsidiary Cimerwa’s sales grew by 1% year-on-year in the 2020 financial year, in which it recorded earnings before interest, depreciation, taxation and amortisation (EBITDA) of US$16.7m. The producer says that it recovered strongly from a 40-day shutdown of cement production due to a national coronavirus lockdown that started on 22 March 2020, with cement production of 55,000t in July 2020. It also diversified its product range during the period with the launch of its new Sure Range cements.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Albert Sige said, “These results demonstrate Cimerwa’s strong foundation, resilience and great potential. In response to the exceptional situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, the team stepped up to the challenge by putting in place measures to ensure business continuity and protect performance. As the market opened up, we were more than ready to continue supplying our customers and stay on the course of Strengthening Rwanda. We undertook various initiatives that will have long-term positive impact on the business. This includes cost savings initiatives, strengthening the organisation and applying innovation to face new challenges. Cimerwa will emerge from this situation even stronger than before.”

Manoj Kumar Rustagi was on hand yesterday to discuss JSW Cement’s operations in the UAE at the Virtual Middle Eastern Cement Conference. At the event, jointly organised by Global Cement Magazine and the Arab Union for Cement and Building Materials (AUCBM), Rustagi mainly stuck to the development of the producer’s new integrated plant in the Fujairah Free Zone but he also gave an overview of JSW Cement’s presence in India. For example, as part of an industrial conglomerate, JSW Group, the cement producer benefits from links to steel production by JSW Steel that enables it to use blast furnace slag. Notably, JSW Cement’s Shiva Cement subsidiary announced plans at the end of November 2020 to spend around US$200m on a new 1.4Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Sundergarh district, Odisha with the clinker production line supplied by ThyssenKrupp Industries India.

JSW Cement is not alone in ordering new production capacity. This week, UltraTech Cement approved a planned increase of 12.87Mt/yr for around US$740m. This is in addition to new capacity projects of 6.7Mt/yr that are currently underway. All of these new projects are scheduled to be commissioned in a phased manner by the end of the 2023 Indian financial year (by March 2023). It is unclear at present how exactly these projects are distributed but they are centred in the Northern, Central and Western Zones of the country, and the new tranche includes the previously announced Pali plant in Rajasthan. At this price the inference is that the much of the new capacity will be in the form of grinding plants and/or upgrades to existing clinker lines. Around the same time as this, LafargeHolcim said it wants to spend US$112m on waste heat recovery (WHR) plants for six of its cement plants in India by the end of 2022.

Graph 1: Change in Indian cement production year-on-year (%). Source: Office of the Economic Adviser.

These three projects by major producers suggest that the Indian cement sector is recovering from the effects of the coronavirus lockdown in late March 2020. Graph 1 above shows the sector finally recovering in October 2020, with growth of 3% year-on-year to 26.9Mt. Kumar Mangalam Birla, the chairman of Aditya Birla Group, credited the economic situation with the Indian government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat stimulus program for his decision to commit to UltraTech Cement’s spending spree. This outlook gels with that of Fitch Ratings. The credit ratings agency has forecast in a recent report that ‘strong’ margins during the first half of the 2021 financial year (April – September 2020) are going to limit the financial risks to the larger Indian cement companies despite the lower cement sales volumes due to coronavirus. Pent-up demand helped the industry recover after the lockdown and this was further aided by lower energy/fuel costs and general cost cutting.

Needless to say all of the above is good news for the Indian cement industry after the year it has had. One thought to consider from all of this is who might UltraTech Cement order its mills and clinker lines from? Atmanirbhar, the name of the Indian stimulus plan, has been described as ‘self-reliance’ or ‘self-sufficiency’ in the local press. Unfortunately, relations have been poor between India and China in 2020 due to armed skirmishes along the Line of Actual Control on the border, amongst other issues. Ordering a new clinker production line from, say China-based Sinoma, may not look especially ‘self-sufficient’ in the current climate.

The proceedings pack and video from the Virtual Middle Eastern Cement Conference 2020 is availabe to buy now